The first national poll conducted since last Thursday’s Republican debate shows that Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s bumbled attacks on Mitt Romney and ‘heartless’ response to queries from his critics on instate tuition for illegal immigrants has cost him dearly among the Republican primary electorate.

In this new poll, Perry pulls only 19 percent of the vote, one of his worst showings since entering the race. Mitt Romney edges Perry narrowly, attracting 23 percent of the vote, while fast-food magnet Herman Cain roared into third place with 17 percent of the vote. This is the first poll that put Cain near the top of the pack.

While one poll isn’t a trend and it will take additional polls to confirm the findings, the results seem to indicate that Perry’s poor debate performance may have done more damage to the Perry campaign than originally thought.

Perry has attempted to mitigate the damage from that debate by claiming that he is truer to conservative principles, even if Romney is the more avuncular debater.

As part of that damage control effort, CNN reported that Perry has also participated in telephone-townhalls with conservative activists in Iowa and South Carolina, where he again tried to explain his positions on immigration, border security and the controversial HPV vaccinations that he mandated.

To top it all off, Perry told a conservative blog earlier today that he may have been over the top in his description of critics of the Texas DREAM Act, walking back from his earlier comments at the debate where he said that critics of the program did not “have a heart.”

Meanwhile, Jon Huntsman attracted 4 percent of the vote, which may be sufficient to get him into the next presidential contest.